A Life Remembered
by Koori Arashi
Summary: Two minds and two worlds collide. What happens when dreams become reality? Crossover fic.


I am not a 100 percent sure where this came from, but I have an idea where to run with it, I just don't know if I should.  
Please review and let me know what you think.  
Koori

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**Chapter 1**

Cye tugged the belt of his robe a little tighter as he strolled into the kitchen, humming tunelessly to himself. It was a sleepy Sunday morning in the Ronin manor. As usual Cye was the first one up, ready to make brunch for the rest of the sleeping zombies otherwise known as his friends. He glanced out the window while flipping on the kettle to make some tea and froze.

Ryo was sitting on the back deck, shoulders slumped, absently stroking White Blaze as he gazed sightless into the predawn forest. Cye frowned. Ryo had been acting _strangely_ the last couple of months. It hadn't been anything obvious. Wildfire just had had a general aura of… of what? Cye shook his head as he reached for Ryo's red cup in addition to his own dolphin-themed one.

_I don't even know if the others have noticed or not. Sage maybe. But he's just letting it run its own course, like I've been doing. Nothin's coming down the armors. And well… _

Realizing he had finished making the tea while lost in his thoughts, Cye grabbed them and wandered outside to interrogate Ryo.

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Ryo sighed and shifted restlessly, jostling the tiger at his side. White Blaze peered up at him through one half-open eye. Ryo smile ruefully and patted the big furry head, "Sorry Blaze, go back to sleep."

He sighed again as he watched his fingers make patterns in the thick fur. _It's that dream again, why am I always having that damn dream?_

Ryo was startled out of his contemplations by a snort of amusement behind him. He whirled around, this time ramming a knee into White Blaze's side. The big cat harrumphed, having enough of the abuse and stalked inside, past the smirking Torrent in the doorway. Disoriented by this change of events, Ryo blinked dumbly up at the other boy. "Hey Dude, what's up?"

Cye held out a steaming mug as he claimed a spot next to his friend. "You're abusing my name, that's what." Ryo was just starring so he clarified, "That's two sighs in less than two minutes. Cye. _sigh_" He let out a deep-chested woosh of air, emulating the dejectedness Ryo exuded. "Get it?"

Ryo gave a ghost of a smiled. "Sure, man, sure." He took a sip of tea enjoying how the hot liquid burned on his tongue and down his throat.

When it became apparent that Wildfire was not going to offer anything further, Cye contemplated his own tea and asked softly, "What's wrong Ryo?"

The silence dragged on, broken only by the song of the crickets and a breeze ruffling the leaves in the distance. Cye was about to ask again, afraid that he hadn't been heard when Ryo spoke.

"Do you dream Cye?"

Knowing it wasn't an idle question, but having no idea where this was leading he responded, "Of course I dream. Good, bad… very… very _strange_…" Cye trailed off remembering a dream from the previous night that involved a cross-dressing Talpa threatening a duct tape-mummified Tom Cruise with death by cheese grater if he didn't reveal how the Teletubbies would allow him to achieve world domination. Jerking out of the disturbing image, Torrent asked, "Did a dream drive you out here?"

Ryo hmned noncommitently.

"Common Ryo. A pain shared is a pain halved, you know."

"It's stupid."

Cye rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Coming out here in _that_ is stupid," he waved a hand at the red boxer shorts and ratty black tank Ryo sat shivering in. "Did you even realize you're cold!? sigh Look! Now you have me doing it! Stop being so stubborn Ryo and tell me What. Is. Wrong It woke you up and drove you outside to brood. It's not stupid, it's worrying… I-I've noticed something's been bothering you for a while now… Tell me."

Smiling down into his tea cup, Ryo shoved the other boy with his shoulder. "Pushy, aren't ya?" He sighed one last time and then raised his hands in mock surrender, "Okay, okay no more broody angsty stuff, I'll tell ya. I just –" Grunting in disgust, he pounded clenched fists against his thighs. "I keep having this same dream, every single night. – Well, maybe not the SAME dream. It just ends that way."

"What way?"

"With everybody dead and a phoenix screaming across the sky."

Suddenly intent furious, Cye grabbed Ryo's shoulder, whirling him around. "And you didn't say anything!? My God Ryo, we have to tell the others, Lady Kayura – maybe she'll know something…" He jumped to his feet, intent on rousing the house.

Ryo yanked him back down. "Chill Cye! And I thought I was supposed to be the hot-head one!"

Blue eyes met blue. "Okay, so explain it to me." Torrent's voice tore at him like a riptide.

Breaking the stare first and sweeping an arm at the world at large, "''Cause you, the guys, the warlords, nobody we know is there. Hell the way things looked, I don't even if I'm on Earth… or-or even in the same time."

"The same time," was the flat response.

"Yeah. People, clothes, hell the sky's even pink! _Nothing's the same,_ well except for this one girl. Cute little thing with long black hair. No matter where I am, what I'm doing, what _age_ I am. Geeze Cye, in some of these dreams I don't think I was five years old! I was getting my cheeks pinched, hair ruffled, lost in a jungle of giants and then she appeared. Actually it was more like stomped. She dragged me outta there like Sage fleeing a pack of love-sick harpies."

Cye snorted in spite of himself, "So you're telling me that for the last couple of months you have dreaming about death, destruction, and a two-year old girl with your temper."

"Hey!" Ryo paused thoughtful, "Not my temper, she's got her own, but it's kinda the same. Same mold, maybe? And she's only two when I am, we're always the same age… or at least I think we are. I'm usually taller but if I'm older so's she."

Cye frown thoughtfully. "Could they be memories?"

"But from what? I don't know. But what's really driving me nuts is how the dreams _always end _."

"With death and a phoenix."

He nodded. "There's this battle I'm always fighting. Sneak attack or something. And I'm looking for her but it's like for the first time she's not there. She's supposed to be there and she's not." Ryo looked intently at his brother in arms. "It's just like that first time you and guys were taken hostage in the Nether Realm and I..." His hands clenched and unclenched helplessly.

Cye gripped his hands and look him in the eye, "I understand Ryo. What happens next?"

Ryo looked down at their linked hands and took strength from this support. "Knife through the gut, arrow through the throat, always some fun, new bloody way to die. But I never find her in time. I wasn't there to watch her back and she wasn't watching mine. When everything's going black I can just see this flaming bird flying towards me. And then I wake up and I can hear her scream echoing in the phoenix's cry."

Cye watched his leader thoughtfully. "But Ryo, phoenixes can be reborn."

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In another Japan violet eyes starred into the Great Fire, seeing not flame, but a laughing raven haired boy juxtaposed over a hardened warrior.

"Who are you tiger-eyes? And why do I feel like I should know you?"


End file.
